It was not plagiarism

The first paragraph of my previous post on this space had in an unreserved way the perfect explanation of what was to be expected in the next paragraphs. If anyone thought of me as a plagiarist then there must be something wrong with the working of thier muscles around the lens in their eyes or with the language of english they seem to understand.

I had a good day today spent with a friend after a night at my grandparents' house. I feel a bit tired now and I do not intend to force myself into a chain of words and thoughts that I would end today's update right in the next sentence. I have got many things to write on from the last two days I have spent thinking, reading, finishing 'The Fountainhead', and several more actions on the street and at home, that I shall write in detail when I wake up tomorrow and feel like letting the words off on the keyboard without any feel of effort - neither on my hands nor on my brains.

Learn How to Destroy the Men, the Masses and the World

I wanted to share this. After completing the editing (90% is not my original) I had to spend time in thinking the exact blog that should hold this article. Then I remembered the words on the top of ‘The ME Daily’. I found my space.

Not for those who have read 'The Fountainhead'.

Destroying people is an art that can be learnt. I am writing the following after reading a part of ‘The Fountainhead’. This may seem to be a little of unbecoming of me as I am writing on destruction, not just simple destruction, but the destruction of people. I have taken almost all lines directly from the book and I take no credit for any part of this complete explanation; I take the responsibility but. The words here have been made to be said by a character Ellsworth Toohey. I am using them. Simply.

The purpose of me putting this on my blog, as would definitely be doubted by everybody, is that rather than helping to destroy someone, I intend to let them know what can destroy them; or is destroying them. This piece of information can be used in a disgraceful way – for an evil purpose. My purpose of writing it - help others understand the evil being inflicted on them - due to anything they might have done, or not done.

The so called thinkers or philosophers, or principally the preachers of ‘good’ have done a great deal of teaching on how people must be happy or what they should do to be happy. I, for the help of making things understood better, for the next few minutes, will call myself a successor of such kind of men, till the end of this text. A person who wants to rule the world by destroying people’s ‘self’ is narrating his ideas and intentions.

I want to rule the world. I intend to rule. Like all my spiritual predecessors. But I’m luckier than they were. I inherited the fruit of their efforts and I shall be the one who’ll see the great dream made real. I see it all around me today. I recognize it. I like it. Enjoyment is my destiny. I shall find such satisfaction as my capacity permits. I shall rule the world.

It’s only a matter of discovering the lever. If you learn how to rule one single man’s soul, you can get the rest of mankind. It’s the soul, the soul. Not whips or swords or fire or guns. That’s why the Caesars, the Attilas, the Napoleons were fools and did not last. I will. The soul, is that which can’t be ruled. It must be broken. Drive a wedge in, get
your fingers on it--and the man is yours. You won’t need a whip--he’ll bring it
to you and ask to be whipped. Set him in reverse--and his own mechanism will do
your work for you.

Use him against himself. Want to know how it’s done? There are many ways. Here’s one. Make man feel small. Make him feel guilty. Kill his aspiration and his integrity. That’s difficult. The worst among you gropes for an ideal in his own twisted way. Kill integrity by internal corruption. Use it against itself. Direct it toward a goal destructive of all integrity. Preach selflessness. Tell man that he must live for others. Tell men that altruism is the ideal. Not a single one of them has ever achieved it and not a single one ever will. His every living instinct screams against it. But don’t you see what you accomplish? Man realizes that he’s incapable of what he’s accepted as the noblest virtue--and it gives him a sense of guilt, of sin, of his own basic unworthiness. Since the supreme ideal is beyond his grasp, he gives up eventually all ideals, all aspiration, all sense of his personal value.


He feels himself obliged to preach what he can’t practice. But one can’t be good halfway or honest approximately. To preserve one’s integrity is a hard battle. Why preserve that which one knows to be corrupt already? His soul gives up its self-respect. You’ve got him. He’ll obey. He’ll be glad to obey--because he can’t trust himself, he feels uncertain, he feels unclean. That’s one way. Here’s another. Kill man’s sense of values. Kill his capacity to recognize greatness or to achieve it. Great men can’t be ruled. We don’t want any great men. Don’t deny the conception of greatness. Destroy it from within. The great is the rare, the difficult, the exceptional. Set up standards of achievement open to all, to the least, to the most inept--and you stop the impetus to effort in all men, great or small. You stop all incentive to improvement, to excellence, to perfection.

Don’t set out to raze all shrines--you’ll frighten men. Enshrine mediocrity--and the shrines are razed. Then there’s another way. Kill by laughter. Laughter is an instrument of human joy. Learn to use it as a weapon of destruction. Turn it into a sneer. It’s simple. Tell them to laugh at everything. Tell them that a sense of humor is an unlimited virtue. Don’t let anything remain sacred in a man’s soul—and his soul won’t be sacred to him. Kill reverence and you’ve killed the hero in man. One doesn’t reverence with a giggle. He’ll obey and he’ll set no limits to his obedience--anything goes--nothing is too serious.

Here’s another way. This is most important. Don’t allow men to be happy. Happiness is self-contained and self-sufficient. Happy men have no time and no use for you. Happy men are free men. So kill their joy in living. Take away from them whatever is dear or important to them. Never let them have what they want. Make them feel that the mere fact of a personal desire is evil. Bring them to a state where saying ‘I want’ is no longer a natural right, but a shameful admission. Altruism is of great help in this. Unhappy men will come to you. They’ll need you. They’ll come for consolation, for support, for escape. Nature allows no vacuum. Empty man’s soul--and the space is yours to fill. This is the oldest one of all. Look back at history. Look at any great system of ethics, from the Orient up. Didn’t they all preach the sacrifice of personal joy? Under all the complications of verbiage, haven’t they all had a single leitmotif: sacrifice, renunciation, self-denial? Haven’t you been able to catch their theme song--’Give up, give up, give up, give up’?

Look at the moral atmosphere of today. Everything enjoyable, from cigarettes to sex to ambition to the profit motive, is considered depraved or sinful. Just prove that a thing makes men happy--and you’ve damned it. That’s how far we’ve come. We’ve tied happiness to guilt. And we’ve got mankind by the throat. Throw your first-born into a sacrificial furnace--lie on a bed of nails--go into the desert to mortify the flesh--don’t dance--don’t go to the movies on Sunday--don’t try to get rich--don’t smoke--don’t drink. It’s all the same line. The great line. Fools think that taboos of this nature are just nonsense. Something left over, old-fashioned.

But there’s always a purpose in nonsense. Don’t bother to examine a folly--ask yourself only what it accomplishes. Every system of ethics that preached sacrifice grew into a world power and ruled millions of men. Of course, you must dress it up. You must tell people that they’ll achieve a superior kind of happiness by giving up everything that makes them happy. You don’t have to be too clear about it. Use big vague words. ’Universal Harmony’--’Eternal Spirit’--’Divine Purpose’--’Nirvana’--’Paradise’--’Racial Supremacy’--’The Dictatorship of the Proletariat.’ Internal corruption. That’s the oldest one of all. The farce has been going on for centuries and men still fall for it. Yet the test should be so simple: just listen to any prophet and if you hear him speak of sacrifice--run. Run faster than from a plague. It stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there’s service, there’s someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.

But if ever you hear a man telling you that you must be happy, that it’s your natural right, that your first duty is to yourself--that will be the man who’s not after your soul. That will be the man who has nothing to gain from you. But let him come and you’ll scream your empty heads off, howling that he’s a selfish monster. So the racket is safe for many, many centuries. But here you might have noticed something. I said, ’It stands to reason.’ Do you see? Men have a weapon against you. Reason. So you must be very sure to take it away from them. Cut the props from under it. But be careful. Don’t deny outright. Never deny anything outright, you give your hand away. Don’t say reason is evil--though some have gone that far and with astonishing success. Just say that reason is limited. That there’s something above it. What? You don’t have to be too clear about it either. The field’s inexhaustible. ’Instinct’--’Feeling’--’Revelation’--’Divine Intuition’--’Dialectic Materialism.’

If you get caught at some crucial point and somebody tells you that your doctrine doesn’t make sense--you’re ready for him. You tell him that there’s something above sense. That here he must not try to think, He must feel. He must believe. Suspend reason and you play it deuces wild. Anything goes in any manner you wish whenever you need it. You’ve got him. Can you rule a thinking man? We don’t want any thinking men.

You’re afraid to see where it’s leading. I’m not I’ll tell you. The world of the future. The world I want. A world of obedience and of unity. A world where the thought of each man will not be his own, but an attempt to guess the thought of the brain of his neighbor who’ll have no thought of his own but an attempt to guess the thought of the next neighbor who’ll have no thought--and so on, around the globe. Since all must agree with all. A world where no man will hold a desire for himself, but will direct all his efforts to satisfy the desires of his neighbor who’ll have no desires except to satisfy the desires of the next neighbor who’ll have no desires--around the globe. Since all must serve all.

A world in which man will not work for so innocent an incentive as money, but for that headless monster--prestige. The approval of his fellows--their good opinion--the opinion of men who’ll be allowed to hold no opinion. An octopus, all tentacles and no brain. Judgment! Not judgment, but public polls. An average drawn upon zeroes--since no individuality will be permitted. A world with its motor cut off and a single heart, pumped by hand. My hand--and the hands of a few, a very few other men like me. Those who know what makes you tick--you great, wonderful average, you who have not risen in fury when we called you the average, the little, the common, you who’ve liked and accepted those names. You’ll sit enthroned and enshrined, you, the little people, the absolute ruler to make all past rulers squirm with envy, the absolute, the unlimited, ‘God’ and Prophet and King combined. Vox populi. The average, the common, the general. Do you know the proper antonym for Ego? Bromide. The rule of the bromide. But even the trite has to be originated by someone at some time. We’ll do the originating. Vox dei. We’ll enjoy unlimited submission—from men who’ve learned nothing except to submit. We’ll call it ‘to serve.’ We’ll give out medals for service. You’ll fall over one another in a scramble to see who can submit better and more. There will be no other distinction to seek. No
other form of personal achievement.

Everything that can’t be ruled, must go. And if freaks persist in being born occasionally, they will not survive beyond their twelfth year. When their brain begins to function, it will feel the pressure and it will explode. The pressure gauged to a vacuum. Do you know the fate of deep-sea creatures brought out to sunlight? So much for future egotistical. The rest of you will smile and obey. Have you noticed that the imbecile always smiles? Man’s first frown is the first touch of God on his forehead. The touch of thought. But we’ll have neither God nor thought. Only voting by smiles. Automatic levers--all saying yes.

What of me, the ruler? What of me? And I’d say, Yes, you’re right. I’ll have no purpose save to keep you contented. To lie, to flatter you, to praise you, to inflate your vanity. To make speeches about the people and the common good. I’m the most selfish man you’ve every known. I have more independence than you; I just force you to sell your soul. I use people for the sake of what I can do to them. It’s my only function and satisfaction I want power. I want my world of the future. Let all live for all. Let all sacrifice and none profit. Let all suffer and none enjoy. Let progress stop. Let all stagnate. There’s equality in stagnation. All subjugated to the will of all. Universal slavery--without even the dignity of a master. Slavery to slavery. A great circle--and a total equality. The world of the future.

You can say I am insane. There you sit and the world’s written all over you, your last hope. Insane? Look around you. Pick up any newspaper and read the headlines. Isn’t it coming? Isn’t it here? Every single thing I told? Everything I said is contained in a single word--collectivism. And isn’t that the god of our century? To act together. To think--together. To feel--together. To unite, to agree, to obey. To obey, to serve, to sacrifice.

Remember the Roman Emperor who said he wished humanity had a single neck so he could cut it? People have laughed at him for centuries. But we’ll have the last laugh. We’ve accomplished what he couldn’t accomplish. We’ve taught men to unite. This makes one neck ready for one leash. We found the magic word. Collectivism.

Every country is dedicated to the proposition that man has no rights, that the collective is all. The individual held as evil, the mass--as god, No motive and no virtue permitted--except that of service to the proletariat. That’s one version. Here’s another. A country dedicated to the proposition that man has no rights, that the State is all. The individual held as evil, the race--as god. No motive and no virtue permitted--except that of service to the race.

If you’re sick of one version, we push you into the other. We get you coming and going. We’ve closed the doors. We’ve fixed the coin. Heads--collectivism, and tails-- collectivism. Fight the doctrine which slaughters the individual with a doctrine which laughters the individual. Give up your soul to a council--or give it up to a leader. But give it up, give it up, give it up. My technique. Offer poison as food and poison as antidote. Go fancy on the trimmings, but hang on to the main objective. Give the fools a choice, let them have their fun--but don’t forget the only purpose you have to accomplish. Kill the individual. Kill man’s soul. The rest will follow automatically. Observe the state of the world as of the present moment. Do you think I’m crazy?



The rights to the above are reserved for the owners of all the works of Ayn Rand.

I hope I meet him at least once before we die

My friend who was here in Hyderabad for a month is leaving for US tomorrow; untill now he was in Riyadh. He came to meet me today. The last things we spoke were "we will meet again. After 2 years or 4 years or after 10 years!" The way this was said made it look like we will at least meet before we die. It was hard for me to hear this being said. It was harded after he left. I am fine now.

He is going to Chicago. I do not have any relatives in Chicago. So should I anytime go to US I may not meet him unless something happens out of hand. Untill I came to my engineering he was the only one who was close to me outside my house. For the last past year I have hidden a lot from him. I couldn't help it. And now when I saw him after more than 2 years all I came to know that he is leaving. Forever. I had to talk to him about so much. I had to hear so much from him. Hope I meet him soon. May be after years.

I was supposed to go to my grandparents' house today. They said they will manage alone. I will go tomorrow if they want me to come. So even my plans to finish the novel have been postponed.

Yesterday I started writing another article but I didn't complete that one too. So now I have 3 things left to be finished. And of course not to forget the editing of 'Humilis and Purpa'. This new thing which I had started writing is something I had learned from 'The Fountainhead'. I know it sounds silly when I say I learn things from a novel, but I know what I am learning is good and it couldn't have been taught to me in any other way (probably). I will choose things that should become my teachers for myself - regardless of what others say or think.

Today will be one of my days I will never forget. I know I will be seeing much worse times than these. I am reminded of a hindi song that translates to "On the walk of life the miles-stones crossed never come again ...".

My brother removed his mustache finally. He trimmed them using a scissors and he did it remarkably neaty. When I first saw him he looked like my dad in his old photograph. But there was something more that was coming to my mind and after a very uncomfortable thinking I found that he was somewhat looking like the Shar Rukh Khan in DDLJ. His hair style made the resemblence more close. Hehehe!

My mom was on leave today. She had to take my grandfather to hospital. She later told me about the fuss he created there. She is of the opinion that old age is like a curse. Old people act like kids and they require a lot of care. We all someday get to see these days and by the time we come to see them we forget what I have written here - that we act like kids and require a lot of care. God save us all.

Mixed feelings today

Just with the start of afternoon I began to feel restless. I knew why I was feeling that way and I also knew that nothing could be done then. I wanted to go out but everybody seems to be busy with themselves or others. I did hav some work at home, some cleaning, but I waited till I was back to normal. I the evening I was fine and smooth.

Later in the evening I got many e-books from a forum kind of website. I have all the books I wanted to have. Only that they are in electronic format and that makes them almost useless for me. I wish I had the patience and 'whatever we need' to read them from the computer screen.

The dinner again was from outside. I haven't eaten food that has been cooked at home since Saturday morning. And I like this happening.

10 days from today my mother will be leaving for a nearby district - Mahboobnagar. She has some inspection work to do there. She and her inspection teem will be verifying the working of the local Distric Co-operative Central Bank. She has to do the supervision and the other managers will do the work. This reminds me of her posting in Sangareddy that was a couple of years back. She will be there for 4 days and it will be me who will have to take care of the house. Not that I do not like doing it, just that I will miss her. God-willing everything will proceed fine.

Sometime back I started the editing of a post I had written a few days back. I removed a good chunk of it. It would have made me call myself imbecile. There is more to be done on it.

I am nearing the end of The Fountainhead. Actually crawling. No amount of suspense and drama has been able to grip me. Hope it is a good thing for me. Tomorrow I may have to be at my grandparents' house, so I guess I can complete it there.

Bad men are good teachers. Yet we can't be thankful to them.

I was wondering how much I can learn from people like George W Bush, Osama Bin Laden, Hitler and others of the same kind. These people have been successful with whatever endevors they had planned for themselves; let their objectives be kept aside. We have heard about them but never tried to find the kind of persons they are. We have judged them based on the reports by media and words of mouths, but have never tried to find out the truth underlying.

Take for instance the 3 names I have mentioned: G W Bush - it is not an easy to keep the office for 2 terms in succession, becoming the President of Unied States itself is a task, may be he has been unreasonable with what he has done (or what he has been made to do) but as a person there must be commendable traits within him that have brought him to such a position; O B Laden - he was (or is?) a millionaire, may be an inheritor, has formed such a powerful statement called Al Qaida, he masterminded so many events, may be a bad man, but takes a lot to become whatever he is now; Hitler - how many of us do really know him? or about him? we call him bad because he was called bad by the US led coalition, it takes a gem of an orator to persuade a whole nation to make them believe that they have been destined to rule the world.

We can learn the good characters these people have possessed. Not only the so called good can have good in them. Every successful man (in his own terms) has been a marvel and so the reason for his success. It is again the desire and not the object. The desire is to learn, the object my be anything as long as it is rational.

In the evening my dad took us out for a long drive past Rajendranagar. Then we had some creamy stuff at a bakery. The day was spent half at a relative's house, the prior half at home. It was good. I had put up a few updates on News and Opinions and I am struggling with one for Gridlocked. It is a poem.

Yesterday night (actually morning), after posting the update on this space, I went ahead to write a post for Flowing Emotions. In my update I had written that I was in no mood to write a thing - what I have written later exceeded 1600 words. It is not complete yet - I still have to add some more points and make it a polished article. There is a lot to be done on it.

I met a friend today at my house. Two more who where expected didn't turn up.

Finally my internet connection has been restored to the regular one - unlimited. I flushed out 400 mb in last 4 days. It was less compared to my regular usage - daily it goes beyond 120 mb. I can resume that now. It is accounted mostly by the music downloads.

Huh!

Writing about when I woke and when I slept is really naive.

I was out today to a relative's house in the afternoon and came back after 7 pm. Later I did a few households and ... really nothing worthy of being written. Actually right now I am in no mood to write but I have made doing this a regular compulsion and I am now writing out of it.

Blogger.com was down again so I had to post yesterday's update today morning. Then I updated News and Opinions too. It is really easy to do that - just search for news which I didn't get in the news paper and put it ther with a pic and link it.

I am really trying to get into gear to write my next article but I guess I am not getting enough. I have to start it today before going to sleep. I can complete anytime later. But I must be careful of not letting it remain like that 'unfinished letter - an open one (again)'. ... lolz.

There are sometimes somenay thing I wnat to share in this space but I am tied to my feeling that I don't waste it here and put it in a more refined manner in some other blog. Mywork on Operation Desert Storm is still. The work is just about thinking what stance to take - give out the facts in a plain way, or make it interesting by adding things everybody likes to read - good or bad, or put it in such a way that nobody understands what I am trying to do. The last one will be easire - doing things even I may not understand. But that would be against objectivism. But one ting is for sure: my lazyness is troubling me. I am even tired of saying that I am lazy.

I think it is easire to write than to read. reading from the monitor is always a pain to me. Probably that is a reason why I don't go for editing once I have finished writing something. I ahve so many flaws. The biggest problem is that I am not aware of all of them.

Starlight seems brighter than sun!

There was a problem with Blogger.com. I was not able to post anything - not even comments on other blogs. Good heavens it working fine now. For once I felt I won't be able to update today. (This is an update for Thursday ... the time now is 1:13 am. I love the number 13!)

I don't remember the time it was when I slept yesterday. I woke up at 9:40 am. I kept awake beating sleep - reading, thinking, laughing at myself. Though I was online during the daytime I didn't get anybody to chat with. I found my uncle online. He was at his office in Dammam but still I had a voice chat with him through Skype. The clarity was superb.

I came online again late in the evening and was happy to find 2 of my friends online. Felt good after having a chat with them. I was feeling real lonely in the though my parents and my brother were at home. But I am doing great now. The time I am spending with yahoo messenger is reducing day after day. No one seems to come online when I am online. May be others are not fools like me to waste their time on the net. Am I a fool doing it? What do I do then? Sit in front of the television? Sleep?

Yesterday night after going to bed (this is when my brain works the best) I planned my next posting for Flowing Emotions. This is not there on the list ans it may be a type of reproach, insolently. I will try good enough to make it worse. It is always good to find newer ways of writing. But with maturity and precision. I feel it is all about controlling emotions.

My dad's 2 wheeler broke down when he was coming back home in the evening. It was somewhere on the city ring road. He called his friend and got another vehicle sent for him through some worker at his construction site. Even this one broke down, but it was near my house. It was a tiring day for my father. There seems to be a problem with the car's battery too. I guess he will buy a new one tomorrow.

I wasted this week. Didn't get much to do. I still have 2 more days to go and I plan to spend somet ime with my old friends on Saturday. One of them is leaving for US shortly and I am dying (not really!) to meet him.